Bob hawke

The Chinese are definitely concerned about the tendency of this Australian government to align itself with the United States.

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.

There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn't have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement.

There's something at the root of our love-hate relationship with celebrity that I think has the makings, if you could do it in a really substantive way, of a great modern American novel. And it's something I know a lot about, and so I feel like that's the book that I should write.

It was a stupid tax to be brought in in the first place. The Hawke Government was desperately looking around for an advanced revenue stream. The Government doesn't need that revenue stream now.